The Dark Days
by TimIsaFunSucker
Summary: UK/FemUS two-shot. The world has fallen into chaos ever since zombies started to overtake the Earth. Amelia and her sister Maddie are drifters hopping from town to town avoiding the hordes and scavenging for food. Eventually they meet a helpful Brit who joins their small group. Happy times are far from their reach, however.
1. Chapter 1

Blank 9

Amelia's heart pounded in her chest as she ran across the uneven ground of the forest. Her hurried breath created little puffs of steam as she exhaled into the chilly night air. The gun in her hands seemed heavier than normal as she pressed forward, trying to make as little noise as possible while still trying to get to her destination as quickly as possible.

As she turned the corner, said location became visible. It was an old, abandoned hunting cabin that had long been forgotten out in the woods. Well, forgotten by everyone except for herself and select others. The door to the cabin seemed to hang at an angle, as if the building's weight had shifted at some point but the door remained stubborn. Amelia reached out and knocked on the door repetitively and impatiently.

"W-who's there?" a scared voice from within called out. Amelia rolled her eyes impatiently.

"Maddie, it's me, Amelia! Open the stupid door!" she hissed. There was a pause of silence, and then the noise of rusty locks being fiddled with. Soon after the door creaked open a crack, revealing a sliver of a person's face and a violet eye. Then the door was thrust open fully, revealing a delicate-looking girl with her long, blonde hair pulled into loose pigtails. Amelia pushed past her and closed the door behind her.

Maddie was Amelia's twin sister, and she had always been the shyer of the two. Before the Dark Days, Amelia had been very boisterous and eager to meet new people, but Maddie was weary of nearly all strangers, and she was even worse now than she had been before.

"You know that you don't have to peek to check if it's me if you hear my voice, right?" she asked as she walked over to a gun rack and placed her rifle back in its place.

"I'm just double-checking!" Maddie insisted. "You can't be too careful, you know!"

Amelia set the sack she had been carrying with her down on the table. "Zombies can't talk, Maddie," she said dryly.

Maddie threw herself down on a love seat and frowned. "Still…" she muttered under her breath. She then turned to her sister. "So what did you get on this raid, anyways?"

Amelia sighed and flung herself down onto the couch across from Maddie rather ungracefully. "Not much, really. Most of the area around here has been picked over pretty well."

Maddie looked at her sister sadly. "So we're going to have to relocate, soon, then?"

Amelia frowned and sat up straight to return Maddie's gaze. "Afraid so, Mads. There's just not much tying us here anymore. That's why Arthur is out scoping for a new place, remember?"

Maddie looked away in favor of an old, dusty painting that hung on the wall over the mantle of the fireplace. "And...you're sure Arthur will come back?" she asked tentatively.

At this Amelia stiffened and her hands instinctively curled into fists. "Yes, I'm sure Artie will come back perfectly fine!" she said through gritted teeth.

Maddie looked back at her sister, immediately regretting what she had said. "Oh, Amelia, you know I didn't mean it like that! It's just...well, I don't know what we'd do without him. We were pretty bad at this survival thing before we met him, and-"

"We were just fine at surviving on our own! And even so, we don't have to think about that because Artie will be back soon with more supplies and a better place for us to live! Just stop over-thinking stuff for once, Maddie!" Amelia shouted as she shot up out of her seat, fists clenched at her sides so tight that her knuckles were white. She then stormed over to the gun rack and roughly took her rifle off.

"W-where are you going?!" Maddie asked, startled by Amelia's outburst.

Amelia was by now at the door and unlocking the many locks. "I don't know, for a walk or something. I just need to be alone!" She unlocked the last lock and threw the door open angrily. Maddie winced at this.

"Oh, okay. Be careful, though!" she called out. By then Amelia had already slammed the door shut.

Amelia stalked through the woods angrily, muttering harsh words under her breath. They weren't directed at her sister exclusively, however. She knew that Maddie hadn't meant any harm by her words. She was just worried. She tended to get worried easily enough already, but the Dark Days had just made it worse.

By now the sun had gone down to the point where it was hard to see, and Amelia had to squint to see more than three feet in front if her. If she were in her right state of mind at the moment, Amelia would be back at the cabin, possibly heating up a can of soup on the wood stove and apologizing for her earlier actions. However, Amelia was still seething with anger and other pent-up emotions that boiled her blood under her skin. It was because this reason that she nearly didn't hear a twig snapping somewhere near herself.

However, Amelia had just barely heard it, and she turned sharply towards the direction of the noise, squinting to see ahead as she raised her rifle to her shoulder. She strained her ears and could barely hear what sounded like footsteps in the brush, too heavy to belong to an animal. Amelia concentrated her eyes, trying desperately to see ahead. Eventually she could see the faint outline of what looked like a man coming steadily closer to her.

Amelia's breath hitched in her throat and fear gripped her heart for a moment. Could this figure be a zombie? Or one of the night-prowlers who took advantage of refugees such as herself? She had to get back to her sister to make sure she was safe! She backed away silently, her feet barely making any noise. However, they soon found a wayward tree root that was jutting out if the ground, and she tumbled to the forest floor rather noisily. She stopped herself from crying out, at least.

The footsteps halted for a moment, then quickened in her direction. Terrified, Amelia scrambled to pull herself off the ground, but the adrenaline pumping through her veins made her jittery and clumsy. 'This is it,' she thought remorsefully. 'I'm going to die, soon.'

"Hey! Who's there!" a male voice with a thick English accent called out across the forest. Amelia's heart skipped a beat when she heard his voice. Could it be...?

"Arthur?"

The footsteps stopped short for a moment, then the man spoke up again. "Amelia, is that you?"

Amelia felt relief was over her immediately when she recognized his voice. "Yeah, Artie, it's me," she said as she lifted herself off the ground. "You scared the heck out of me, you know that?"

Arthur cleared the distance between himself and the blonde girl quickly, his gun resting limply at his side. "You were making too much noise, you know. If I had been either a zombie or a prowler you would be dead by now." He spoke dryly, but after he was done talking the corners of his mouth turned up into a ghost of a smile. "Lucky for you that it was just me, or you'd be toast, Amelia Jones."

Amelia scoffed and crossed her arms over her chest. "Just for the record, Arthur Kirkland, I was the one who heard you approaching first. I just happened to trip and fall. Otherwise you wouldn't have known I'd been here at all!" It didn't take long for her scowl to break into a huge grin, however. She ran up to Arthur and hugged him tightly, almost as if her life depended on it. "I'm just really glad your back, though."

Arthur was surprised by the sudden hug at first, but after a moment's pause he returned it. "And I'm glad to be back. After traveling with you for so long, I found that being alone was much quieter than I'd grown accustomed to. It was surreal."

Amelia pulled back from the hug and punched Arthur lightly on the arm. "Not funny, Artie," she chastised.

Arthur chuckled lightly at the blonde girl. "Come on, let's head back to the cabin. Your sister is probably waiting for us." He pulled her closer for a moment and left a quick kiss on her forehead, which sent happy shivers down Amelia's spine. Then he released her and they started walking towards the cabin together.

Amelia and Maddie had met Arthur a few weeks after the Dark Days had started. The only supplies the girls had were food that they got from their own pantry and the clothes on their backs. They had no idea how to survive without electricity or supermarkets, and they were quickly running out of food. After a week or so, Amelia had finally realized that in order to survive they would need to raid the surrounding abandoned houses, and volunteered to be the one to scavenge. When she was going through the pantry of her third house she heard a noise coming from somewhere else in the building. Amelia froze up, scared that she had broken into a home that wasn't, in fact, abandoned, or worse, that she had walked straight into a horde of zombies.

Wielding the baseball bat that she had nicked from another house, she made her way through the halls, breathing slowly in order to make less noise. Eventually she tracked the noise to one of the house's bedrooms. When she peeked inside she saw a tall, dishwater-blond boy sifting through someone's dresser drawers. Terrified but curious, she walked into the room.

"H-hey! You! What are you doing?" she spoke up, her voice slightly shaky. The boy turned around quickly, his eyes wide with surprise, revealing that they were a deep, mossy-green.

"I-I, um…" he stuttered, caught off guard by Amelia's sudden appearance. He then cleared his throat, and tried to speak again. "I'm terribly sorry. Um, is this…your house?"

Amelia shook her head, still not lowering her bat. "No. And I'm guessing it's not yours, either."

The boy also shook his head. "No, you're assuming correctly." He looked at Amelia inquisitively. "Are you a refugee, too?" he asked, raising one of his eyebrows (which, Amelia observed, were quite bushy).

Amelia scoffed. "No, I'm a zombie. No duh, I'm a refugee!"

The boy frowned. "Hey, no need to be snappy with me!"

Amelia rolled her eyes, then she looked at the boy skeptically. "What were you doing going through the drawers, anyways?" she asked.

The boy looked confused. "Looking for new clothes, obviously. I can't exactly wear the same thing for the rest of my life, and I lost all of my old clothes when my town was evacuated."

Amelia gaped at the boy for a moment before speaking up. "Clothes, really? Out of all things in this world you could be worrying about at the moment, you're concerned with _clothes?! _What about, oh, I dunno, food?"

The boy narrowed his eyes at Amelia. "Well, I was going to look for food after I was done in here! I didn't know there were other people snooping through the cupboards in this area, too, otherwise I would have started in the kitchen!"

Something about the way the boy said "snooping" rubbed Amelia the wrong way. "Hey, just so you know, I'm gathering food for my little sister and me to eat!" Immediately after she had spoken Amelia realized she had given this stranger too much information. She didn't know anything about him, so she shouldn't have revealed anything too personal, even if that thing was the existence of her sibling.

The boy's eyes widened in surprise and something that was unidentifiable…maybe understanding? "You have a little sister?" he asked. Amelia bit her lip and nodded slowly. "How old is she?"

Every bit of Amelia's reason told her to stop talking right now and to not give this boy any more information about herself or Maddie. It told her to get away from this house and this boy and to keep everything to herself for the rest of her life. But at the same time, some part of Amelia missed being so open with people. She missed being able to chat with people who weren't her family and for her to be an open book that anyone could read. It was this part of Amelia that spoke next. "Well, she's the same age as me – we're twins – but I was born first, so technically I'm older." She then took a deep breath. "We're nineteen."

The boy nodded, a slightly amused smile tugging at his lips. "I had a little brother before the Dark Days. He was about twelve. I don't know where he is right now, though. After the evacuation I realized that I couldn't take him with me in a world like this, so I left him with a nice foreign couple who promised to take care of him. I haven't seen or heard from him since." He looked Amelia in the eyes, mossy-green meeting watery-blue. "So I guess I understand how important that food is to you." The boy took something from the bed and held it in both of his hands. With a start Amelia realized that it was a gun. It wasn't pointed at her, and the boy's face didn't look threatening, but its presence still made Amelia's heart speed up and her chest feel tight with fear. "I guess I'll leave you, now. I just have one question; what is your name?" The boy smiled warmly at Amelia, and for a moment it made her forget the gun that was currently in his hands.

"Amelia," she answered quickly. She didn't even have time to think about whether or not she should give this boy her name – her mouth just worked on its own, answering questions without her consent.

The boy nodded. "That's a pretty name. Mine is Arthur." He looked to the ceiling for a moment, then back down. "I guess I'll be on my way, now. Goodbye, Amelia."

Amelia nodded in return, finally lowering the bat that she had just realized she was still holding. "Goodbye, Arthur."

Arthur stepped forward, still smiling, and shifted his gun to one hand so he could hold his other out for a handshake. Amelia hesitated, but returned the handshake with a small grin. "Good luck out there," she said. Though her tone was joking, Amelia's words were far from a joke. They were a true wish that this man would have luck on his side.

Arthur nodded at Amelia, and she could tell that he knew the seriousness of her words. "Good luck to you and your sister as well," he responded, returning her blessing. Then he released her hand and walked past her, out the doorway and into the hallway of the house, and presumably heading towards the door.

Watching him leave, Amelia had mixed emotions. She was relieved that Arthur had turned out to be an honorable man, and not a creep willing to take advantage of a young girl out on her own. However, she also felt a little sad, as he had been the only contact she had, had with anyone outside of her family tree since the Dark Days, and it pained her to know that she would likely never meet him again. The world was a big place, and refugees like him and herself were always on the move.

Amelia let out a light gasp as an idea suddenly came to her. She immediately turned on her heel and ran from the house, hoping she could catch Arthur before he got too far.

"Arthur!" she shouted as she ran through the house's front door. "Arthur, wait!"

Luckily enough for her, he was only a handful of houses away, walking alone on the sidewalk with his gun resting against his shoulder. Upon hearing Amelia's voice, he turned to face her. Even from so far away, Amelia could tell that he was confused by her actions. "Amelia, what is it? Is something wrong?" he shouted in response.

Amelia ignored his words and run up to him. Once he and her were face to face, she started talking urgently, still breathless from her sudden actions. "Y-you're traveling alone, right?" she asked.

Arthur raised an eyebrow at her question. "Um, yes. Why do you ask?"

"Well, Maddie (my sister) and I are travelling alone, too, and I figured that if we all traveled together, maybe we would have more man-power and it would be easier to keep each other safe and survive!" Amelia looked Arthur in the eye excitedly. "What do you say, Artie?"

Arthur looked surprised at Amelia's proposition. "You really want to travel with me?" he asked. Amelia nodded. "You realize that traveling in a group means that it will be harder to move as quickly, right?" Amelia shrugged. Arthur sighed. "I'm just not sure…" he said, tearing his eyes away from Amelia's.

Amelia's heart cold stopped in her chest. She didn't want to lose Arthur, this person that she barely knew, but still felt extremely close to nonetheless. "Please," she begged, her voice quieter than it had just previously been. "You're the first person besides my sister I've talked to in weeks. I…I miss this sort of thing." She cast her eyes down briefly, before looking back at Arthur. "Come on, Artie, just try it. If it doesn't work out, then you can leave, and I won't be angry with you. Just give it a chance."

Arthur looked back at Amelia and sighed again. "I suppose it wouldn't hurt to try it," he said. Then he smiled at her, his face looking genuinely happy for the first time since Amelia had met him. "I would love to travel with you and your sister, Amelia. I just have one thing to ask of you."

Amelia cocked her head to the side, confused. "What?" she asked.

Arthur chuckled lightly at Amelia's confusion. "Please don't call me 'Artie' again."

Ever since then Arthur had been an important part of both Amelia and Maddie's lives. Maddie was, of course, apprehensive about him at first, but eventually she warmed up to him. Amelia and Arthur were two peas in a pod in the sense that they were both hot-headed and instinctive, but that was where the similarities stopped. Amelia was open and always talking, while Arthur was quieter, and a little more closed off. When raiding pantries for food, Arthur always looked for the healthiest choices for the group, while Amelia always jumped at the opportunity to bring back junk food. One time the two got into a heated argument over whether or not it was sensible to bring back a box of HoHos. Once they had gotten her a gun for self-defense, Amelia found herself being a little more trigger-happy than Arthur was. As the three traveled, though, Amelia and Arthur developed a close relationship that neither had really experienced before.

There wasn't much structure in the world anymore, so labels didn't hold much meaning, but if the Dark Days hadn't happened and everything were the same as it had been, one might be able to describe the two as a couple. All that mattered to them, though, was that they were closer to each other than they had ever been to anyone else, and they knew that they would try to protect each other no matter what., I'


	2. Chapter 2

Blank 7

**I'M SO SORRY I KNOW I PROMISED I'D HAVE IT UP BY MONDAY BUT I COMPLETELY FORGOT CAN YOU EVER FORGIVE ME?**

**Yeah, anyways, read and enjoy. (Also try not to cry…wait, who said that? Not me…)**

When Arthur and Amelia returned to the cabin, Arthur was too tired from his travels to tell the sisters what he had found, so they all turned in early. However, the next morning Amelia woke up much more than eager to hear what he had to say, so she ended up poking both Arthur and Maddie until they were both awake. After eating a quick breakfast of dried fruit and trail mix, they sat down in front of the empty fireplace to talk.

"So, Artie, whatchy'a find out? Did you find a new place for us to make camp? If you did, it must be pretty far out for as long as you were gone! It was practically a year!" Amelia bombarded Arthur as soon as he settled himself next to her on the couch.

He frowned slightly at Amelia's rambling. "I was gone for barely a month, Amelia, nowhere near a year."

Amelia rolled her eyes. "Well, it felt like a year!"

Maddie sighed at her sister. "Amelia, you really have no sense of patience, do you?" Amelia stuck her tongue out at Maddie childishly in response.

"Whatever, the point still stands – did you find a new place?" Amelia asked, turning her attention back to Arthur.

"Well, I did find a place several miles from here. It's far away, but it's a nice, secure location with nearby resources. Plus, most of the trip we would be covered by forests, so we won't have to worry about traveling in the open," Arthur explained to the girls.

"When do you suggest we get moving?" Maddie asked, waving off Amelia, who was trying to fuss with her sister's pigtails.

"Personally, I think we should move as soon as possible. Possibly by tonight, and no later than tomorrow," Arthur sighed. "Do you think that we can be ready by then?"

Amelia suddenly snapped to attention, ignoring the braid she had been weaving into Maddie's hair. "Heck yeah, we can be ready in time!" she said eagerly. "You're forgetting, Artie, we're a traveling circus. We can pack up and be ready in a matter of a few hours!" She slung her arm around Maddie, causing the more fragile girl to flinch.

"Well, hopefully you're right," Arthur said, standing up from his seat. "Let's get ready now."

Amelia also stood up from her spot on the couch, springing up excitedly. "Aye aye, Cap'n!" she said, smirking while saluting jokingly.

They spent the rest of the day getting their belongings together and packing their food into one space. At some point, Amelia joked that they needed to bring the mounted moose head that hung over the cabin's mantle, insisting that he was Maddie's "best friend in the world." This resulted with Maddie hitting her sister with a wayward flyswatter. By the time night rolled around, they were all packed and ready to go.

They were about a day into their journey before they ran into any other human beings. The event, however, wasn't a happy one. Amelia had wandered ahead to pick some wild raspberries she had found. The string of bushes had taken her to a clearing that was currently occupied by a couple of brutish scavengers who had claimed the land as their own. What made the men so dangerous wasn't their territorial nature, or even the fact that Amelia had been picking their raspberries. It was the mere fact that Amelia was a female, and the men had been reduced to mere animalistic instincts, with little to no morality left in their devolved minds. They had thrown their humanity away the moment the Dark Days had happened, holding them as an excuse to commit unspeakable crimes, and were now disgusting creatures who had no idea that touching someone without permission was a horrid offense.

The men had heckled Amelia using very choice language. She had been frightened, but at the same time the sight of the men triggered a defiant streak in her that had been dormant for months. She responded to the mens' jests with sarcasm and snark, refusing to let her fear show through. At the same time she was silently hoping that Arthur wasn't too far behind her, because while Amelia was strong, she doubted she could overpower both of these heavily-muscled men.

Luckily, it seemed God was smiling upon her because the men hadn't even laid a hand on her before Arthur and Maddie had caught up with her, wandering into the clearing. Arthur pulled Amelia behind his shoulder protectively and told Maddie to keep her distance. He tried telling the men off, but they would not cease their lewd looks and comments at now both of the ladies, so Arthur advanced on them and knocked them out swiftly with the butt of his gun. The three then left the clearing as quickly as they could, not wanting the men to wake up and come after them.

They travelled onward for a few more days, until they were a week into their journey. It was around day three Amelia started complaining. Now she was stuck asking the universal road-trip question...

"Are we there yet?" Amelia droned for the fifth time that day, expressing her tiredness and boredom by dragging her feet in the brush, not even trying in the slightest to mask the noise.

Arthur brought his hand up to massage his temple where he could already feel the ghost of a headache starting to form. "No, Amelia. I told you ten minutes ago that it would only be a day now, remember?" he asked tiredly. Amelia's eyes widened.

"No way, that was only ten minutes ago? It felt like an hour!" she exclaimed. Then she groaned and rolled her head on her shoulders dramatically. "Dudes, we're never gonna get there! We might as well just give up and die now!"

"Amelia!" Maddie snapped, startling not only Amelia but Arthur, too. "We are both tired to the point of death by your constant complaining! You either stay here by yourself, or shut up and walk!" The outburst was unexpected from the usually quiet girl, and it shocked Amelia enough to keep her quiet for the next hour.

Not long after that, though, she was just opening her mouth to ask her repetitive question again when Arthur spun around and held his hand up, signaling the girls to be quiet. At first Amelia was confused by this action, but then she heard it: multiple branches snapping in the distance as something large advanced on their location.

Scared, Amelia's eyes scanned Arthur as she looked for some sort of signal as to what she should do. When she saw him reach for his gun, she replicated the action, and Maddie quickly followed suit. The three of them looked towards where the sound came from and saw a large crowd of what appeared to be people approaching from their right side. With their shuffling movements and blatant disregard for the noises they were making, there was only one logical explanation as to what they were. They were a horde of zombies.

Amelia's breath hitched in her throat and again turned to Arthur, hoping he would know what to do. Their little survival group had never actually fought any zombies head-on, so they were incredibly inexperienced in this field. Arthur closed his mouth, which had been gaping open, and swallowed hard, and then mouthed the single word "run."

Amelia didn't hesitate to carry out that command, as she was flying through the forest the moment the word formed on Arthur's lips. She could hear him and her sister running alongside her as she maneuvered around the various trees. However, she could also hear the zombies running after them too, chasing just as fast as the group could run. The thing about zombies was that in old movies and video games they were always portrayed as slow moving creatures that were dumber than rocks. In reality, though, zombies were really as fast as humans were, and creatures that acted on impulse and hunting instinct alone. This didn't necessarily make them smart, but it sure as heck didn't make them stupid.

From the corner of her eye, Amelia saw Arthur turn around, gun poised to take the zombies out. "Keep going," he commanded as his finger hit the trigger, letting loose a spray of bullets from the semi-automatic weapon. "I'll hold them off!"

Amelia wasn't having any of that "hero" stuff from Arthur. She was not going to just keep going and leave him alone to deal with the horde. She also turned around, locking her rifle into place on her shoulder and firing once blindly into the group, luckily hitting a zombie just right to make him fall. Arthur glanced up at Amelia, surprised, before quickly turning his attention back to the horde only a handful of yards away.

"I told you to keep going!" he shouted over the noise of his gun as he once again shot a cluster of bullets in front of him.

"I wasn't leaving you to deal with this alone!" Amelia shouted, glancing into her scope and taking another monster as she talked.

Arthur shook his head. "You really are so stupid, sometimes..."

Amelia snorted. "Love ya too, jerk!"

Arthur and Amelia's ammunition soon started getting low and they took off running again. Maddie was nowhere to be seen, presumably having listened to Arthur when he told the girls to keep running. The zombies were quickly gaining on the pair, though, and it wasn't too long before Amelia felt a cold, dead hand brush against her back. She squealed and pushed herself to run even faster, if it were even possible. Arthur noticed, and he positioned his gun over his shoulder and shot blindly behind him. He completely missed, though, and the creature managed to get a handful of Amelia's t-shirt, pulling her back roughly. She ended up on her feet, staring into the lifeless eyes of her pursuer and its comrades, of which there were four left.

"Arthur!" she screamed as she struggled to lift her gun in order to fight her way out of her current position. It was pinned under her, however, and the zombie was creeping up to her much too close for her to reach under her body to pull it out.

"Amelia!" Arthur shouted, turning around quickly and charging at the beast that had Amelia pinned. He knocked him off successfully and Amelia sprung up, quickly positioning her gun and taking aim at the remaining members of the horde, meanwhile Arthur was locked in hand-to-hand combat with the one who had caught Amelia. When she ran out of bullets she raised her gun like a baseball bat and used it to club in the heads of the remaining few. Just as she was finishing this task, Arthur finally broke free of the creature he'd been wrestling with and shot it down, finally abolishing the last of the enemy.

The two young adults stood there panting heavily for a moment, letting everything that had just happened sink in before they collapsed into each other's arms, happy that the nightmare was finally over. They stayed like that, clutching to each other desperately and thankfully for a while before they parted.

"I'm sorry I didn't listen to you, but I wasn't about to let you give yourself up for Maddie and me, not after you'd done so much for us, and I didn't want you to be fighting alone, and I was so scared for you and I just – "Amelia started rambling before Arthur brought a finger up to her lips to silence her.

"No, you did well, Amelia, and you did the right thing. I was trying to play the hero, and – "

"Arthur,"

"What?"

"You're bleeding."

Arthur glanced down at his arm to see that Amelia was correct and he was, in fact, bleeding. He used the corner of his shirt as a rag to wipe the blood away and found the most horrifying sight he could imagine under the blood: a bite mark.

They both stared at it for a moment before Amelia whispered a near-silent, "No."

"Amelia – "

"No."

"Amelia, I need – "

"NO!" She shook her head and screamed, choking back sobs as she did so. "This isn't happening! This isn't real! You're gonna be fine, Artie! You hear me? You're gonna be fine!"

"Amelia, there's nothing we can do."

"Don't say that!" she said as tears started to streak down her cheeks. "We'll find a way to stop it! I promise!"

"Amelia, you and I both know there's no way to stop it." He leveled his eyes with Amelia and hers locked with his for a moment, forming a connection for them and them only. "Amelia, I don't want to become one of them," he said as he lowered his gun and held it out to Amelia. When Amelia formed the connection he was trying to make, she shook her head furiously.

"No, I won't do it!" she insisted, tears continuing to stain her cheeks.

"You have to!" Arthur insisted, still holding the gun out for her to take.

"No, I don't!"

"Amelia," Arthur said, his voice lowering into a serious tone. "If you don't do it, I'll do it myself. But I need you to keep going and to meet up with Maddie and to get to the new area. It's only an hour or so away, now." He extended his arm a little further, offering Amelia the gun again. "Please."

Tears coming down her face like waterfalls, now, Amelia accepted the gun, and she weekly positioned it in her hands.

"I love you, Arthur," she said weekly, her voice nearly giving out.

Arthur nodded sadly. "And I love you, Amelia."

And that's when Amelia's mind went blank.

…

**Do you hate me yet?**

**I'm sorry for killing off Arthur, but I just had this idea and it wouldn't get out of my head and I wanted to write angst and…this happened. I love you, Arthur! You know I didn't kill you out of spite, right? Right? A~and he's not talking to me. Fuck.**

**Also the reason this is genderbent is because I wrote it for English class and my community is fairly homophobic, and I didn't want to get a call home saying, "Your evil devil-child is writing unholy things!" so…yeah.**


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